Mark, make sure you see Trombone Shorty when you go down there. ( I recommend pressing pause and letting the video load completely before viewing.)- jimlouis 4-10-2007 3:19 am [link] [add a comment]

we know from our own mr a wilson that thealexander wilson was a preeminent american ornithologist. what i didnt realize is that he was a skilled illustrator or birds as well. he is noted for the eight volume set posted here. first to find the wilson warbler wins.

It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?- jimlouis 4-08-2007 5:52 pm [link] [add a comment]

i dont know if its some new edict but theres some prick of a traffic cop giving out tickets to motorcycles locked up to the fence on the allen street mall (the median). first they removed the benches so that the human flotsam would move elsewhere (although now noone has any place to sit) now this. im still waiting for that glorious revitalization project that they wasted money crowing about two years ago.

After a two-year legal battle, the city of New York has dropped its lawsuit against Time’s Up!

The lawsuit, filed March 22, 2005, targeted the monthly Critical Mass bicycle rides in Manhattan, in which large groups of cyclists ride together. The city sought to require that Critical Mass obtain a parade permit, and also wanted to stop Time’s Up! from promoting Critical Mass.

“We’re very happy that the case was dropped,” said Bill DiPaola, director of Time’s Up! “We’re hoping that this is a first step in a more positive relationship between bicyclists and New York City.”

The city was forced to drop the lawsuit after the Police Department instituted a new rule, said Sheryl Neufeld, senior counsel in the Administrative Law Division of the New York City Law Department.

The new rule defines a parade as a procession of 50 or more pedestrians, vehicles or bicycles, Neufeld said. The old rule did not specify a number of participants.

I think we saw a gyrfalcon on saturday. Alex, is it possible? It was HUGE, bigger than any eagle I've ever seen. But it had pointy bent wings like a falcon, and very dark, almost black, on the underside. We saw it quite close up, near the north shore of Lake Erie, which I know is a hot spot for migration. - sally mckay 3-27-2007 12:06 am [link] [14 comments]

What better way to celebrate than with a record dramatizing the novel's steamiest scenes, complete with orchestral accompaniment? Unless you consider “phallus” and “sex” to be obscene words, you'll find yourself quaintly charmed by the idea that this once caused an uproar, even though the anonymous actors do their best to sell the sex with breathless, melodramatic readings.

Both the jacket and the album feature the notation, “Vol. 1,” on all sides, suggesting that this was the first in a series. As the album covers the entire plot of Lady Chatterly's Lover, I must assume that they never found another piece of adult-oriented literature worthy of adaptation.

For my "Pointy Stick Award For Practicing Ludditry With a Computer", I tried to be clever and do a superposition of images in html. This works in firefox but renders badly in internet exploder.

Oh wait. Now it sort of works. Sort of. I'm too tired to futz with it. If I'm lucky, I might get a link from the mighty PZ Myers, and I don't want a badly broken post that mocks a luddite.
I got the idea from here.
Here's another version ...